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There's No Trouble In This World So Serious That It Can't Be Cured With A Hot Bath, A Glass Of Whiskey, And The Book Of Common Prayer.

-Elizabeth Gilbert

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There's No Trouble In

Elizabeth Gilbert

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There's No Trouble In This World So Serious That It Can't Be Cured With A Hot Bath, A Glass Of Whiskey, And The Book Of Common Prayer.

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Creativity Does Not Belong Exclusively To Professional Artists And Geniuses; It Is The Birthright Of Every Single Human Being. Creativity Is Our Common Heritage. You Don’t Need To Quit Your Job And Move To Paris In Order To Lay Claim To This Heritage - All You Have To Do Is Clear Some Space In Your Life For Whimsy, Invention, Sensory Pleasure, And Play. Most Of All, You Have To Learn How To Follow Your Curiosity More Than Your Fear.

Desiring Another Person Is Perhaps The Most Risky Endeavor Of All. As Soon As You Want Somebody—really Want Him—it Is As Though You Have Taken A Surgical Needle And Sutured Your Happiness To The Skin Of That Person, So That Any Separation Will Now Cause A Lacerating Injury.

Tis' Better To Live Your Own Life Imperfectly Than To Imitate Someone Else's Perfectly.

I Never Wanted To Be The Person That Waited For A Stranger To Come To Town - I Wanted To Be The Stranger!

For If There Is One Thing I Have Learned Over The Years About Men, It Is That Feelings Of Powerlessness Do Not Usually Bring Forth Their Finest Qualities.

But At Some Point You Have To Make Peace With What You Were Given And If God Wanted Me To Be A Shy Girl With Think, Dark Hair, He Would Have Made Me That Way, But He Didn't. Useful, Then, Might Be To Accept How I Was Made And Embody Myself Fully Therein.

The Number 108 Is Held To Be The Most Auspicious, A Perfect Three-digit Multiple Of Three, Its Components Adding Up To 9, Which Is Three Threes. And 3, Of Course, Is The Number Representing Supreme Balance.

There Is No Choice More Intensely Personal, After All, Than Whom You Choose To Marry; That Choice Tells Us, To A Large Extent, Who You Are.

Oh, Cold World -- I Have Grown So Weary Of You And All Your Horrible Bathrooms.

This Was Not My Moment To Be Seeking Romance And (as Day Follows Night) To Further Complicate My Already Knotty Life. This Was My Moment To Look For The Kind Of Healing And Peace That Can Only Come From Solitude.

In A World Of Disorder And Disaster And Fraud, Sometimes Only Beauty Can Be Trusted.

There Is So Much About My Fate That I Cannot Control, But Other Things Do Fall Under My Jurisdiction. There Are Certain Lottery Tickets I Can Buy, Thereby Increasing My Odds Of Finding Contentment. I Can Decide How I Spend My Time, Whom I Interact With, Whom I Share My Body And Life And Money And Energy With.

It's Not Enough For Me To Just Hear About Something Or Read About Something, I Wanna Know It In My Bones.

The Silly Putty-like Malleability Of The Institution [marriage], In Fact, Is The Only Reason We Still Have The Thing At All. Very Few People... Would Accept Marriage On It's Thirteenth-century Terms. Marriage Survives, In Other Words, Precisely Because It Evolves. (though I Suppose This Would Not Be A Very Persuasive Argument To Those Who Probably Also Don't Believe In Evolution).

So Sadness Is A Place?' Giovanni Asked. 'sometimes People Live There For Years,'i Said.

I Don't Think You Can Say That Feminism Has Made Women Critical Of Marriage Because Women Have Been Critical Of Marriage For Centuries.

She Followed The Pleasure Where It Led. She Had No Weight, No Name, No Thoughts, No History. Then Came A Burst Of Phosphorescence, As Though A Firework Had Discharged Behind Her Eyes, And It Was Over. She Felt Quiet And Warm. For The First Conscious Moment Of Her Life, Her Mind Was Free From Wonder, Free From Worry, Free From Work Or Puzzlement. Then, From The Middle Of That Marvelous Furred Stillness, A Thought Took Shape, Took Hold, Took Over. I Shall Have To Do This Again.

In Venice In The Middle Ages There Was Once A Profession For A Man Called A Codega--a Fellow You Hired To Walk In Front Of You At Night With A Lit Lantern, Showing You The Way, Scaring Off Thieves And Demons, Bringing You Confidence And Protection Through The Dark Streets.

Everything Good I've Ever Gotten In Life, I Only Got Because I Gave Something Else Up.

What I Object To Is The Hyper-fetishized Wedding Day, The Prioritizing Of Wedding Over Marriage. I Have A Real Problem With Couples Spending Far More Time Discussing The Seating Arrangement Or The Color Of The Bridesmaid's Gowns Than Hashing Out, For Instance, Their Feelings About How They Intend To Handle Questions Of Housework, Child-rearing, Finances And Fidelity For The Next Four Or Five Decades.

Man Is A Demon, Man Is A God. Both True.

Writing Is Not Like Dancing Or Modeling; It's Not Something Where-if You Missed It By Age 19-you're Finished. It's Never Too Late. Your Writing Will Only Get Better As You Get Older And Wiser. If You Write Something Beautiful And Important, And The Right Person Somehow Discovers It, They Will Clear Room For You On The Bookshelves Of The World-at Any Age. At Least Try.

You Love New Boyfriend?" "i Think So. Yes." "then You Must Spoil Him. And He Must Spoil You.

My Work Is Incredibly Important To Me Personally. It Brings Me Joy And It Brings Me Life And It Brings Me Meaning. It Doesn't Necessarily Have To Be Important To The People Who Read It.

Just Having Walked Into A Prison Environment, Sat There For Two Hours, The Effect That It Had On Me. ... I Couldn't Imagine The Effect It Would Have On A Person 24 Hours A Day. So Then I Became More Intrigued, And We Began A Correspondence, And I Began Visiting [todd Willingham].

Well, I Always Tried To Look Nice And Be Feminine Even In The Worst Tragedies And Crisis, There's No Reason To Add To Everyone's Misery By Looking Miserable Yourself. That's My Philosophy. This Is Why I Always Wore Makeup And Jewelry Into The Jungle-nothing Too Extravagant, But Maybe Just A Nice Gold Bracelet And Some Earrings, A Little Lipstick, Good Perfume. Just Enough To Show That I Still Had My Self-respect.

I Do Forget Sometimes How Much It Means For Certain Men—for Certain People—to Be Able To Provide Their Loved Ones With Material Comforts And Protection At All Times. I Forget How Dangerously Reduced Some Men Can Feel When That Basic Ability Has Been Stripped From Them. I Forget How Much That Matters To Men, What It Represents.

Success Isn't About Acquiring Things, It's About Discovering Your Life Purpose And Following The Call

Acquiring Things

Your Tears Are My Prayers.

The Four Virtues A Person Needs In Order To Be Safe And Happy In Life: Intelligence, Friendship, Strength And (i Love This One) Poetry.

I Wondered, "why Have I Been Chasing Happiness My Whole Life When Bliss Was Here The Entire Time?

Do You Think There's Any Way Humans Can Love Each Other Without Complication?

Happiness Is The Consequence Of Personal Effort. You Fight For It, Strive For It, Insist Upon It, And Sometimes Even Travel Around The World Looking For It. You Have To Participate Relentlessly In The Manifestations Of Your Own Blessings. And Once You Have Achieved A State Of Happiness, You Must Never Become Lax About Maintaining It. You Must Make A Mighty Effort To Keep Swimming Upward Into That Happiness Forever, To Stay Afloat On Top Of It.

Sanity And Clarity Are More Important For Me And I'm Willing To Give Up A Lot Of Shimmer For It. I'm Willing To Have More Boring Friends, Who Are Sane.

Do Not Apologize For Crying. Without This Emotion, We Are Only Robots.

The Search For God Is A Reversal Of The Normal, Mundane Worldly Order. In Search For God, You Revert From What Attracts You And Swim Toward That Which Is Difficult. You Abandon Your Comforting And Familiar Habits With The Hope (the Mere Hope!) That Something Greater Will Be Offered You In Return For What You Have Given Up.. If We Truly Knew All The Answers In Advance As To The Meaning Of Life And The Nature Of God And The Destiny Of Our Souls, Our Belief Would Not Be A Leap Of Faith And It Would Not Be A Courageous Act Of Humanity; It Would Just Be.. A Prudent Insurance Policy.

To Travel Is Worth Any Cost Or Sacrifice.

I Love My Pizza So Much, In Fact, That I Have Come To Believe In My Delirium That My Pizza Might Actually Love Me, In Return. I Am Having A Relationship With This Pizza, Almost An Affair.

If Something Is Rubbing So Hard Against You, You Can Be Sure It's Working On You.

One Must Always Be Prepared For Riotous And Endless Waves Of Transformation.

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance

You Must Find Another Reason To Work, Other Than The Desire For Success Or Recognition. It Must Come From Another Place.

Desire For Success

Of Course, We All Inevitably Work Too Hard, Then We Get Burned Out And Have To Spend The Whole Weekend In Our Pajamas, Eating Cereal Straight Out Of The Box And Staring At The Tv In A Mild Coma (which Is The Opposite Of Working, Yes, But Not Exactly The Same Thing As Pleasure).

The Culture Of Rome Just Doesn't Match The Culture Of Yoga, Not As Far As I Can See. In Fact, I've Decided That Rome And Yoga Don't Have Anything In Common At All. Except For The Way They Both Kind Of Remind You Of The Word Toga.

Childlessness Doesn't Make People Selfish; Selfishness Makes People Selfish.

I Was A Bartender For A Long Time, So I Know How To Make Drinks, But I'm More Likely To Offer Them Than To Have Them. I Think This Is One Of The Reasons Why I Get To Live Longer Than My Great-grandmother Did, And Why I Get To Produce More Writing Than She Did, And Why My Marriage Isn't In Dire Straits.

Love Renders All Of Our Plans And All Of Our Hopes A Gamble.

Creativity Itself Doesn't Care At All About Results - The Only Thing It Craves Is The Process. Learn To Love The Process And Let Whatever Happens Next Happen, Without Fussing Too Much About It. Work Like A Monk, Or A Mule, Or Some Other Representative Metaphor For Diligence. Love The Work. Destiny Will Do What It Wants With You, Regardless.

I Was A Veritable Johnny Appleseed Of Grand Expectations, And All I Reaped For My Trouble Was A Harvest Of Bitter Fruit.

Until-as Often Happened During Those First Months Travel, Whenever I Would Feel Such Happiness-my Guilt Alarm Went Off. I Heard My Ex-husband's Voice Speaking Disdainfully In My Ear: So This Is What You Gave Up Everything For? This Is Why You Gutted Our Entire Life Together? For A Few Stalks Of Asparagus And An Italian Newspaper? I Replied Aloud To Him: "first Of All," I Said, "i'm Very Sorry, But This Isn't Your Business Anymore. And Secondly, To Answer You Question...yes.

Fear Can Have A Voice, But It Doesn't Get A Vote.

Eventually, Everything Goes Away.

But Vegetarians Can Eat This...because Intestines Aren't Even Meat, Liz. They're Just Sh$*.

Nobody Wants To Do It - Not Real Change, Not Soul Change, Not The Painful Molecular Change Required To Truly Become Who You Need To Be. Nobody Ever Does Real Transformation For Fun. Nobody Ever Does It On A Dare. You Do It Only When Your Back Is So Far Against The Wall That You Have No Choice Anymore.

But We Are Not What The Other One Needs, Still He Is Certain That I Will Find Great Love In My Life Someday. He Is Sure Of It. After All, He Says, Beauty Attracts Beauty.

I Want To Learn How To Speak Italian. For Years, I'd Wished I Could Speak Italian--a Language I Find More Beautiful Than Roses :)

The Augusteum Warns Me Not To Get Attached To Any Obsolete Ideas About Who I Am, What I Represent, Whom I Belong To, Or What Function I May Once Have Intended To Serve.

Your Home Is Whatever In This World You Love More Than You Love Yourself.

I Thought About One Of My Favorite Sufi Poems, Which Says That God Long Ago Drew A Circle In The Sand Exactly Around The Spot Where You Are Standing Right Now. I Was Never Not Coming Here. This Was Never Not Going To Happen.

We're Already Separated That's Official But There's Still A Window Of Hope Left Open That Perhaps Someday We Could Give Things Another Try.

Some Days Are Meant To Be Counted, Others Are Meant To Be Weighed.

I'm Trying To Dismantle A Stereotype That In Order To Live Any Kind Of Creative Life, You Have To Be In Torment And Suffering. We're Addicted To This Idea Because It Makes For Good Bio Pics... But I Actually Think It's Better To Live A Life Where You're Constantly Exploring Your Curiosity And Creativity.

Nobody's Life Is Interesting Enough To Warrant A Third Memoir.

In 1954, Pope Pius Xi, Of All People, Sent Some Vatican Delegates On A Trip To Libya With These Written Instructions: "do Not Think That You Are Going Among Infidels. Muslims Attain Salvation, Too. The Ways Of Providence Are Infinite.

I Think When You Are An Aspiring Writer, You Must Write Every Day. It's Not As Though Anybody Will Call You Up On The Phone And Say, "i Understand You Are A Very Promising, Aspiring Writer And I'm Going To Give You This Assignment." You Have To Create It Yourself Or It's Never Going To Happen.

I Decide Every Day That I Love Creativity Enough To Accept That Fear Will Always Come With It. And I Talk To Fear All The Time, Speaking To It With Love And Respect, Saying To It: “i Know That You Are Fear, And That Your Job Is To Be Afraid. And You Do Your Job Really Well! I Will Never Ask You To Leave Me Alone Or To Be Silent, Because You Have A Right To Speak Your Own Voice, And I Know That You Will Never Leave Me Alone Or Be Silent, Anyhow. But I Need You To Understand That I Will Always Choose Creativity Over You.

Only The Young And Stupid Are Confident About Sex And Romance.

I Have Far More Enthusiasm In Life Than I Have Actual Energy. In My Excitement, I Routinely Take On More That I Can Physically Or Emotionally Handle, Which Causes Me To Break Down In Quite Predictable Displays Of Dramatic Exhaustion. You Will Be The One Burdened With The Job Of Mopping Me Up Every Time I've Overextended Myself And Then Fallen Apart. This Will Be Unbelievably Tedious. I Apologize In Advance.

Why They Always Look So Serious In Yoga? You Make Serious Face Like This, You Scare Away Good Energy. To Meditate, Only You Must Smile. Smile With Face, Smile With Mind, And Good Energy Will Come To You And Clean Away Dirty Energy. Even Smile In Your Liver. Practice Tonight At Hotel. Not To Hurry, Not To Try Too Hard. Too Serious, You Make You Sick. You Can Calling The Good Energy With A Smile. (from Ketut Liyer, The Balinese Healer)

Who Amongst Us Lives Without Sacrifice?

Without Sacrifice

This Is A Nice Metaphor, Too, About Mothers And Daughters - That When It Came Time For Me To Make My Own, I Was Making A Completely Different Garden Than The One That My Mom Has. They Don't Look Like They Came From Relatives. Hers Is A Very Productive And Pragmatic Vegetable Garden, And Mine Is A Ridiculous Overabundance Of Useless Plants. It Doesn't Feed Anybody, It Doesn't Serve Any Purpose.

There Is Hardly A More Gracious Gift That We Can Offer Somebody Than To Accept Them Fully, To Love Them Almost Despite Themselves.

As A Writer, You Always Read In Two Minds: You Read As A Reader And You Enjoy It, And You Look At It As A Writer, And You Just Admire The Architecture And The Construction.

You Take Whatever Works From Wherever You Can Find It, And You Keep Moving Toward The Light.

Listen To The Whispers Or Soon You Will Be Listening To The Screams.

If You Want To Get To The Castle, Groceries, You've Got To Swim The Moat.

Marriage Becomes Hard Work Once You Have Poured The Entirety Of Your Life’s Expectations For Happiness Into The Hands Of One Mere Person. Keeping That Going Is Hard Work.

I Don't Think You Can Come Into Your Wisdom Until You Have Made Mistakes On Your Own Skin And Felt Them In Reality Of Your Own Life.

We Can Change Our Wives,” He Said. “we Can Change Our Jobs, Our Nationalities And Even Our Religions, But We Can Never Change Our Team.

I Will Not Harbor Unhealthy Thoughts Anymore.

You Might Get Nothing Out Of It At All Except A Beautiful, Long Life Where All You Did Was Follow Your Gorgeous Curiosity. And That Should Be Enough Too.

It's So Much Easier And Cheaper To Keep The River Uncontaminated In The First Place Than It Is To Clean It Up Again Once It's Been Polluted.

Dear Me, How I Love A Library.

To Be Fully Seen By Somebody, Then, And Be Loved Anyhow - This Is A Human Offering That Can Border On Miraculous.

There Was Really Only One Person Who - And I Remember To This Day - He Was A Fireman, And He Said, "you'll Never Know What You'll Do When You're In A Fire." Everyone Else Was Like: "i Don't Care; I Would Have Saved My Children; I Could Have Done It. Even If I Was Asleep I Would Have Woken Up And Saved My Children." But The Fireman Said, "you Never Know What's Going To Happen Unless You're In There."

I Actually Have A Great Deal Of Respect For Antidepressants; I Think They Can Be Enormously Mighty Tools Toward Recovery.

You Must Stop Looking At The World Through Your Head. You Must Look Through Your Heart, Instead.

Here In America, Marriage Still Has A Mystical, Intangible Power: It Is A Passport To Adulthood And Respectability And To A Certain Extent Citizenship. Any Relationship Less Than "married" Is Considered Temporary And Not Worthy Of Honor.

Nobody's Really Paying That Much Attention To Your Massive Personal Dramas.

You Have To Get Hurt. That's How You Learn. The Strongest People Out There, The Ones Who Laugh The Hardest With A Genuine Smile, Those Are The People Who Have Fought The Toughest Battles. Because They've Decided That They're Not Going To Let Anything Hold Them Down, They're Showing The World Who's Boss. One Must Always Be Prepared For Riotous And Endless Waves Of Transformation.

The Only Thing You Need To Do For Now Is Get Some Rest And Take Good Care Of Yourself Until You Do Know The Answer

Traveling Is The Great True Love Of My Life

Love Of My Life

Great True Love

Creative People Always Suffer From Depression Because We're So Super Sensitive And Special?

Your Father Only Has One Foot On This Earth. And Really, Really Long Legs . . .

We Don't Realize That, Somewhere Within Us All, There Does Exist A Supreme Self Who Is Eternally At Peace.

I Have Had Work Or Ideas Come Through Me From A Source That I Honestly Cannot Identify. And What Is That Thing? And How Are We To Relate To It In A Way That Will Not Make Us Lose Our Minds, But, In Fact, Might Actually Keep Us Sane?

The Thing That I Do Try To Convey Is, Don't Do What I Did - But Ask What I Asked.

All I Could Say Was, "i Don't Know What To Do." I Remember Her Taking Me By The Shoulders And Looking Me In The Eye With A Calm Smile And Saying Simply, "tell The Truth, Tell The Truth, Tell The Truth.

I Said, "it Seems Like You Have Fond Feelings Toward Your Ex-wife. Are You Two Still Close?" "nah," He Said Casually. "she Thinks I Changed My Name To Motherfucker."

What Time Has Ever Been A Simple Time For Those Who Are Living It?

I Completely Respect The Ways People Are Bound In The Lives That They Have, Whether It's Because Of Forces Outside Of Their Control Or Choices That They've Made That They Want To Honor With Their Own Responsibilities And Obligations - Taking Care Of People Around Them Or Being A Part Of A Community, Or Their Work.

I Still Can’t Say Whether I Ever Want Children….i Can Only Say How I Feel Now--grateful To Be On My Own. I Also Know That I Won’t Go Forth And Have Children Just In Case I Might Regret Missing It Later In Life; I Don’t Think This Is A Strong Enough Motivation To Bring More Babies Onto The Earth.

When You Have Only Two Minutes To Say Good-bye To The Person You Love Most In The World, And You Don’t Know When You’ll See Each Other Again, You Can Become Logjammed With The Effort To Say And Do And Settle Everything At Once.

You Know The Old Adage: Plant An Expectation, Reap A Disappointment.

Nothing Is So Essential As Dignity…time Will Reveal Who Has It And Who Has It Not.

I Am Burdened With What The Buddhists Call The Monkey Mind. The Thoughts That Swing From Limb To Limb, Stopping Only To Scratch Themselves, Spit And Howl. My Mind Swings Wildly Through Time, Touching On Dozens Of Ideas A Minute, Unharnessed And Undisciplined. You Are, After All, What You Think. Your Emotions Are The Slaves To Your Thoughts, And You Are The Slave To Your Emotions.

I Like It When Science And Devotion Find Places Of Intersection.

I Am The Planet's Most Affectionate Life-form, Something Like The Cross Between A Golden Retriever And A Barnacle.

Golden Retrievers

As I Got Older, I Discovered That Nothing Within Me Cried Out For A Baby. My Womb Did Not Seem To Have Come Equipped With That Famously Ticking Clock. Unlike So Many Of My Friends, I Did Not Ache With Longing Whenever I Saw An Infant. (though I Did Ache With Longing, It Is True, Whenever I Saw A Good Used-book Shop)

Admittedly, I Am Not The One Who Looks Fantastic In Everything, But Still I Cannot Help Loving Myself.

The Love That Moves The Sun And The Other Stars.

I'm Not A Big Austen Reader. I Wouldn't Say I Dislike Her, But If I Had To Choose Between Her And Eliot To Bring To A Desert Island, It Would Definitely Be Eliot.

We Must Take Care Of Our Families Wherever We Find Them.

You Have To Work Ceaselessly On Your End To Digest And Imbibe Your Opportunities Or, I Have Come To Believe, They Will Gradually Slip Away And Knock On Someone Else's More Receptive Door.

He Looks At You Like You're Someone He's Never Met Before, Much Less Someone He Once Loved With High Passion. The Irony Is, You Can Hardly Blame Him. I Mean, Check Yourself Out. You're A Pathetic Mess, Unrecognizable Even To Your Own Eyes.

Every Intimacy Carries Secreted Somewhere Below Its Initial Lovely Surfaces, The Ever-coiled Makings Of Complete Catastrophe.

The Hopi Indians Thought That The World’s Religions Each Contained One Spiritual Thread, And That These Threads Are Always Seeking Each Other, Wanting To Join. When All The Threads Are Finally Woven Together They Will Form A Rope That Will Pull Us Out Of This Dark Cycle Of History And Into The Next Realm.

Library Is A Beautiful Old Thing

Also, I Could Finally Sleep. And This Was The Real Gift, Because When You Cannot Sleep, You Cannot Get Yourself Out Of The Ditch--there's Not A Chance.

The Notion Is That Human Beings Are Born, (as My Guru Has Explained Many Times,) With Equivalent Potential For Both Contraction And Expansion. The Ingredients Of Both Darkness And Light Are Equally Present In All Of Us, And Then It's Up To The Individual (or The Family, Or The Society) To Decide What Will Be Brought Forth - The Virtues Or The Malevolence. The Madness Of This Planet Is Largely A Result Of Human Being's Difficulty In Coming Into Virtuous Balance With Himself. Lunacy (both Collective And Individual) Results.

I Think A Lot Of People Who Feel As Though They Desperately Want To Be Married Oftentimes Simply Desperately Want To Have A Wedding.

The World Is Like A Dropped Pie Most Of The Time. Don't Kill Yourself Trying To Put It Back Together. Just Grab A Fork And Eat Some Of It Off The Floor. Then Carry On.

If Faith Were Rational , It Wouldn't Be -by Definition- Faith.

Eat Pray And Love

To My Taste, The Men In Rome Are Ridiculously, Hurtfully, Stupidly Beautiful. More Beautiful Even Than Roman Women, To Be Honest. Italian Men Are Beautiful In The Same Way As French Women, Which Is To Say-- No Detail Spared In The Quest For Perfection. They’re Like Show Poodles. Sometimes They Look So Good I Want To Applaud.

Unfenced By Law, The Unmarried Lover Can Quit A Bad Relationship At Any Time. But You - The Legally Married Person Who Wants To Escape Doomed Love - May Soon Discover That A Significant Portion Of Your Marriage Contract Belongs To The State, And That It Sometimes Takes A Very Long While For The State To Grant You Your Leave.

Bad Relationship

Someone Has To Write All Those Stories: Why Not Me?

True Power Comes From Standing In Your Own Truth And Walking Your Own Path.

I Am Stronger Than Depression And I Am Braver Than Loneliness And Nothing Will Ever Exhaust Me.

When I Lost My Friends, It Was Because I Had Used The Power Of Giving On Them Recklessly. I Swept Into Their Lives With My Big Fat Checkbook, And I Erased Years Of Obstacles For Them Overnight - But Sometimes, In The Process, I Also Accidentally Erased Years Of Dignity.

Here Was Something I Already Knew To Be True About Myself: Just As There Are Some Wives Who Will Occasionally Need A Break From Their Husbands In Order To Visit A Spa For The Weekend With Their Girlfriends, I Will Always Be The Sort Of Wife Who Occasionally Needs A Break From Her Husband In Order To Visit Cambodia. Just For A Few Days!

That’s The Thing About A Human Life-there’s No Control Group, No Way To Ever Know How Any Of Us Would Have Turned Out If Any Variables Had Been Changed.

At Some Point, You Gotta Let Go, And Sit Still, And Allow Contentment To Come To You.

I've Never Seen Any Life Transformation That Didn't Begin With The Person In Question Finally Getting Tired Of Their Own Bullshit.

You Need To Learn How To Select Your Thoughts Just The Same Way You Select Your Clothes Every Day. This Is A Power You Can Cultivate. If You Want To Control Things In Your Life So Bad, Work On The Mind. That's The Only Thing You Should Be Trying To Control.

Marriage Is Those Two Thousand Indistinguishable Conversations, Chatted Over Two Thousand Indistuinguishable Breakfasts, Where Intimacy Turns Like A Slow Wheel. How Do You Measure The Worth Of Becoming That Familiar To Somebody—so Utterly Well Known And So Thoroughly Ever-present That You Become An Almost Invisible Necessity, Like Air?

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance. If Faith Were Rational, It Wouldn't Be By Definition Faith. Faith Is Walking Face-first And Full Speed Into The Dark.

Both The Five-year-olds Looked At Me With Bewilderment And A Bit Of Fearful Uncertainty. I Had A Sudden Horrifying Image Of The Woman I Might Become If I'm Not Careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The Divorcee In The Muumuu With The Dyed Orange Hair Who Doesn't Eat Dairy But Smokes Menthols, Who's Always Just Coming Back From Her Astrology Cruise Or Breaking Up With Her Aroma-therapist Boyfriend, Who Reads The Tarot Cards Of Kindergarteners And Says Things Like, "bring Aunty Liz Another Wine Cooler, Baby, And I'll Let You Wear My Mood Ring.

My Life Acccomplishments? Sanity, And You

Prayer Is A Relationship; Half The Job Is Mine. If I Want Transformation, But Can't Even Be Bothered To Articulate What, Exactly, I'm Aiming For, How Will It Ever Occur? Half The Benefit Of Prayer Is In The Asking Itself, In The Offering Of A Clearly Posed And Well-considered Intention. If You Don't Have This, All Your Pleas And Desires Are Boneless, Floppy, Inert; They Swirl At Your Feet In A Cold Fog And Never Lift.

Sometimes Out Hearts Are Broken So New Light Can Get In.

We’re Miserable Because We Think That We Are Mere Individuals, Alone With Our Fears And Flaws And Resentments And Mortality. We Wrongly Believe That Our Limited Little Egos Constitute Our Whole Entire Nature. We Have Failed To Recognize Our Deeper Divine Character.

A True Soul Mate Is Probably The Most Important Person You'll Ever Meet, Because They Tear Down Your Walls And Smack You Awake. But To Live With A Soul Mate Forever? Nah. Too Painful. Soul Mates, They Come Into Your Life Just To Reveal Another Layer Of Yourself To You, And Then Leave.

Watch For The People Whose Eyes Light Up When You Talk About Your Dream. Those Are The People You Keep.

Whenever I Would Feel Such Happiness My Guilt Alarm Went Off

Up Until The Middle Of The Nineteenth Century, Men Of Science Were All Believers. Most Of The Great Early English Naturalists Were Also Ministers; They Were The Only Ones Who Had Education And Leisure For Such Pursuits. Darwin Himself Almost Became A Minister. God's Power Was Always Thought To Be Most Easily And Obviously Revealed In The Majestic Works Of Nature.

I Feel Like All This Stuff That We Make: Books And Art And Music, All Of It. There's This Energy That Circles The World That Wants To Be Made Manifest, And It Is Just Looking For Someone To Come Through. And It's Dying For You To Make It. And If You Don't Do It, It Will Go Find Somebody Else.

I Watched Them, Thinking That Little Girls Who Make Their Mothers Live Grow Up To Be Such Powerful Women.

We Set Up One Rule In Our House, Which Is, 'guests Of Guests Cannot Bring Guests.' That Rule Was Required Because That Happened One Weekend, And We Finally Said, 'okay, You Know What? That's A Little Too Much.'

At The End Of The Day I Am A Writer, And If I Don't Take Care Of This, No One Else Will.

The End Of The Day

Felipe And I, As We Discover To Our Delight, Are A Perfectly Matched, Genetically Engineered Belly-to-belly Success Story.

When I Tried This Morning, After An Hour Or So Of Unhappy Thinking, To Dip Back Into My Meditation, I Took A New Idea With Me: Compassion. I Asked My Heart If It Could Please Infuse My Soul With A More Generous Perspective On My Mind's Workings. Instead Of Thinking That I Was A Failure, Could I Perhaps Accept That I Am Only A Human Being--and A Normal One, At That?

Look - I Understand That An Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living, But Do You Think I Could Someday Have An Unexamined Lunch?

Devotion Is Diligence Without Assurance. Faith Is A Way Of Saying "yes, I Pre-accept The Terms Of The Universe And I Embrace In Advance What I Am Presently Incapable Of Understanding.

There's Always Another Level Up. There's Always Another Ascension. More Grace, More Light, More Generosity, More Compassion, More To Shed, More To Grow.

We Gallop Through Our Lives Like Circus Performers Balancing On Two Speeding Side-by-side Horses--one Foot Is On The Horse Called "fate," The Other On The Horse Called "free Will." And The Question You Have To Ask Every Day Is--which Horse Is Which? Which Horse Do I Need To Stop Worrying About Because It's Not Under My Control, And Which Do I Need To Steer With Concentrated Effort?

I Was A Writer Before 'eat, Pray, Love,' And I'll Be A Writer After It's Over. It's What I Want To Do For The Rest Of My Life.

Happiness Is The Consequence Of Personal Effort. You Must Fight For It, Strive For It, And Insist Upon It.

It Is Merely This World That Is Chaotic, Bringing Changes To Us All That Nobody Could Have Anticipated.

I Am Determined To Make The Most Of This Life That I Have, Damn It - It's That Kind Of Stubbornness I Think We All Need More Of.

I Feel Like There Are Women Who Are Genuinely Born To Be Mothers, And Women Who Are Born To Be Aunties, And Women Who Really Probably Not Should Be Allowed Near Children. The Tragedy That Happens Is When Any One Of Those Women Ends Up In The Wrong Category.

I Think Sometimes We Look At Other People's Marriages And We Think They Must Always Be So Happy Together. I Don't Know Anybody Who's Married For A Long Time Who Hasn't Somehow Made Room In Their Love Story For The Hate And Resentment That They Sometimes Feel Toward Each Other.

Absolute Certainty Is Not Something I Strive For Anymore. I've Learned The Hard Way That Destiny Usually Looks Upon Our Most Strident Convictions With Amusement, Or Perhaps Even Pity.

Because I Know Something That You Don't Know. I Know That This Is The Worst Experience Of Your Life, But I Also Know That Someday You'll Move Past It And You'll Be Fine. And Helping Somebody Likej You Through The Worst Experience Of Her Life Is Incredibly Gratifying.

I Want To Have A Lasting Experience With God. Sometimes I Feel Like I Understand The Divinity Of This World, But Then I Loose It Because I Get Distracted By My Petty Desires And Fears. I Want To Be With God All The Time. But I Don't Want To Be A Monk, Or Totally Give Up Worldly Pleasures. I Guess What I Want To Learn Is How To Leave In This World And Enjoy Its Delights, But Also Elevate Myself To God.

I Am Far More Of A Loner Than People Would Imagine. But I Am The Most Gregarious And Socially Interactive Loner You Ever Met. The Thing Is, I Am Fascinated By People's Stories And I'm Very Talkative And Can't Ever Say No To Anything Or Anyone, So I Tend To Over-socialize, To Give Away Too Much Of My Time To The Many People I Adore.

I Am A Better Person When I Have Less On My Plate.

I Think You Have Every Right To Cherry-pick When It Comes To Moving Your Spirit And Finding Peace In God. You Take Whatever Works From Wherever You Can Find It, And You Keep Moving Toward The Light.

Marriage Is A Strange Combination Of Dream And Reality, And We Spend Our Lives As Couples Trying To Negotiate That Divide.

This Is Intimacy: The Trading Of Stories In The Dark.

You Have To Participate Relentlessly In The Manifestation Of Your Own Blessings.

Follow Your Dreams

God Isn't Interested In Watching You Enact Some Performance Of Personality In Order To Comply With Some Crackpot Notion You Have About How A Spiritual Person Looks Or Behaves. We All Seem To Get This Idea That, In Order To Be Sacred, We Have To Make Some Massive, Dramatic Change Of Character, That We Have To Renounce Our Individuality.

For The Entire Decade Of My 30s And The Early Part Of My 40s, I Didn't Write A Word Of Fiction. I Just Left Behind A Dream Of My Life.

In A World Of Disorder And Disaster And Fraud, Sometimes Only Beauty Can Be Trusted. Only Artistic Excellence Is Incorruptible. Pleasure Cannot Be Bargained Down. And Sometimes The Meal Is The Only Currency That Is Real.

I've Read That Under Trauma, That You Have This Ability To Kind Of Disconnect From The Experience.

You Know, I Think That Allowing Somebody, One Mere Person To Believe That He Or She Is Like, The Vessel You Know, Like The Font And The Essence And The Source Of All Divine, Creative, Unknowable, Eternal Mystery Is Just A Smidge Too Much Responsibility To Put On One Fragile, Human Psyche. It's Like Asking Somebody To Swallow The Sun.

If Life Gives You Lemons, Don't Settle For Simply Making Lemonade - Make A Glorious Scene At A Lemonade Stand.

Women Come Into Marriage With Great Inflated Expectations For What They Want This Relationship To Be, And Men Don't Give It That Much Thought. Men Come Into It With Reluctance About Being Capsized Or Trapped Or Whatever Their Fear Is. When You Check In Later, Women Are Disappointed Because Their Expectations Have Not Come To Pass, And Men Are Pleasantly Surprised.

Equally Disquieting Are The Times When We Do Make A Choice, Only To Later Feel As Though We Have Murdered Some Other Aspect Of Our Being By Settling On One Single Concrete Decision.

Sometimes Beauty Needs A Bit Of Ignoring, To Properly Come Into Being.

Learn Your Way Around Loneliness. Make A Map Of It. Sit With It, For Once In Your Life. Welcome To The Human Experience.

This Is What Rituals Are For. We Do Spiritual Ceremonies As Human Beings In Order To Create A Safe Resting Place For Our Most Complicated Feelings Of Joy Or Trauma, So That We Don't Have To Haul Those Feelings Around With Us Forever, Weighing Us Down. We All Need Such Places Of Ritual Safekeeping. And I Do Believe That If Your Culture Or Tradition Doesn't Have The Specific Ritual You Are Craving, Then You Are Absolutely Permitted To Make Up A Ceremony Of Your Own Devising, Fixing Your Own Broken-down Emotional Systems With All The Do-it-yourself Resourcefulness Of A Generous Plumber/poet.

Every Healthy Marriage Is Composed Of Walls And Windows. The Windows Are The Aspects Of Your Relationship That Are Open To The World—that Is, The Necessary Gaps Through Which You Interact With Family And Friends; The Walls Are The Barriers Of Trust Behind Which You Guard The Most Intimatesecrets Of Your Marriage.

People Will Always Want Intimacy With One Chosen Person And You Cannot Have Intimacy Without Privacy, Which Is Why Couples Draw Circles Of Privacy Around Themselves. They Demand That Family, Neighbors And The Law Respect Their Union, And That Is Why We Have Marriage.

The Yogic Sages Say That All The Pain Of A Human Life Is Caused By Words, As Is All The Joy. We Create Words To Define Our Experience And Those Words Bring Attendant Emotions That Jerk Us Around Like Dogs On A Leash. We Get Seduced By Our Own Mantras (i'm A Failure I'm Lonely I'm A Failure I'm Lonely) And We Become Monuments To Them. To Stop Talking For A While, Then, Is To Attempt To Strip Away The Power Of Words, To Stop Choking Ourselves With Words, To Liberate Ourselves From Our Suffocating Mantras.

I Worked At The Original Coyote Ugly Bar When I Was A Young, Unpublished Writer. Then Later When I Became A Writer, I Wrote An Article About It For Gq. Disney Read This Article About This Filthy, Disgusting Pit In The East Village [of New York City], Where We Used To Set The Bar On Fire To Get Customers Away From Us, And Said, "that's A Great Movie For Kids!" They Made The Fantastic Coyote Ugly Movie, Now Legendary.

Being A Woman Did Not Look Enviable To Me, Even When It Looked Admirable. It Looked Like Nonstop Sacrifice And Service. Because It Was. Being A Woman Seemed Vulnerable And Sad. Even The Strong Women I Knew - And They Were All Strong - Had Earned Their Strength Through Enduring Huge Disappointments And Tremendous Struggles.

One Of These Poems I Wrote After Having Been Here Only A Month. The Other, I Wrote This Morning. In The Space Between The Two Poems, I Have Found Acres Of Grace

Maybe It's Just Me But I Would Suspect That A Man Trying To Impress A Woman Would Be More Likely To Bring Out The Steak - "i Killed This For You, Now I'm Grilling It For You."

My Life's Accomplishments? Sanity, And You.

Faith Is Walking Face-first And Full-speed Into The Dark. If We Truly Knew All The Answers In Advance As To The Meaning Of Life And The Nature Of God And The Destiny Of Our Souls, Our Belief Would Not Be A Leap Of Faith And It Would Not Be A Courageous Act Of Humanity; It Would Just Be... A Prudent Insurance Policy.

Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide.

Wish Upon A Star

Animated Movies

This Was My Moment To Look For The Kind Of Healing And Peace That Can Only Come From Solitude.

You Write Fiction, You're Writing Memoir, And When You're Writing Memoir, You're Writing Fiction.

Writing Fiction

So Now I Have Started Living My Own Life. Imperfect And Clumsy As It May Look, It Is Resembling Me Now, Thoroughly.

What Richard Is Talking About Is Instead Admitting To The Existence Of Negative Thoughts, Understanding Where They Came From And Why They Arrived, And Then - With Great Forgiveness And Fortitude - Dismissing Them.

Il Bel Far Niente Means 'the Beauty Of Doing Nothing'... [it] Has Always Been A Cherished Italian Ideal. The Beauty Of Doing Nothing Is The Goal Of All Your Work, The Final Accomplishment For Which You Are Most Highly Congratulated. The More Exquisitely And Delightfully You Can Do Nothing, The Higher Your Life's Achievement. You Don't Necessarily Need To Be Rich In Order To Experience This, Either.

I Think Another Way That You Can Really Harm Yourself As An Artist Is By Buying Into The Mythology That It's Really Important.

It Has Never Been Easy For Me To Understand Why People Work So Hard To Create Something Beautiful, But Then Refuse To Share It With Anyone, For Fear Of Criticism.

But If You Can Plant Yourself In Stillness Long Enough, You Will, In Time, Experience The Truth That Everything (both Uncomfortable And Lovely) Does Eventually Pass.

If I Am To Truly Become An Autonomous Woman, Then I Must Take Over That Role Of Being My Own Guardian.

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